Spoon Played Mercury Lounge - Pictures, Review

On Thursday night, we were lucky enough to get to stop in at Mercury Lounge and see Spoon deliver an uber-intimate set for around 250 fans. Suffice it to say that (especially as the band's popularity continues to grow) it was a real treat to see the band in such a tiny room. Moreover, it does a pretty damn good job at reminding you just how good Spoon is at recreating their on album sound in the live environment.

Despite the fact that it was one of the looser shows we've seen from the band in quite a while, there's no question that the set was a highly energized dive into the band's more recent material They played most of their latest record, Transference, and kept most of the set firmly trained on their last three records. That being said, there were a few exceptions, drifting back as far as Girls Can Tell.

The set was largely seamless, and it quickly became pretty apparent that playing to a tiny room of devoted fans (even if some of them hadn't heard the new record!?!?) was not going to phase a band as road tested as this one. There was no discernible blip in the set as the band fluctuated between new and old material, and Transference made clear its place among Spoon's well-established catalog.

In addition to the core Spoon configuration, Stephen Patterson of White Rabbits joined the band on stage, adding another guitar for "Mystery Zone". What's more, the band did a bit of instrument swapping, with Britt Daniel and Rob Pope trading bass and guitar duties once or twice over the course of the show.

We have to say: it's one of the great tragedies of discovering fantastic music, that eventually the bands may go on to play huge rooms where you lose a lot of the intimacy of performance. For exactly that reason, it's so exciting to see a band as meteoric as Spoon acknowledging just how awesome and worthwhile a small venue can be. Granted, some folks don't make it in the door, but for the ones who do, it's a sure fire way to get to the heart of what rock and roll is all about.

Spoon begins their US Tour with Deerhunter in March.

Setlist

--

Black Like Me

Is Love Forever?

I Saw The Light

Stay Don't Go ->

Don't You Evah

The Ghost Of You Lingers

Who Makes Your Money

Nobody Gets Me But You

Don't Make Me A Target

Mystery Zone

You've Got Yr Cherry Bomb

Written In Reverse

Someone Something

They Never Got You

I Summon You

The Beast And Dragon, Adored

Got Nuffin

--

Something To Look Forward To

Chicago At Night

Rhythm & Soul

Fitted Shirt

Many more pictures at the HAD Archive.